Clear Channel Communications owns at least three radio stations here in the Bay, and about every three minutes or so they will play this message, I’m paraphrasing here:
“Clear Channel Communications is deeply sorry for the families…(OK, so far so good)…we were going to give away $150,000 in a contest, but now we are proud to donate that money to the victims and their families…”
OK, I appreciate their willingness to donate, but $150,000? I know Tom Hicks has to pay A-Rod’s $252 million salary, but $150k?? $150 fucking K?? Amazon.com received more than that in donations in 20 minutes from people’s credit cards.
Tom Hicks, you disgust me. You could afford $150 MILLION in donations. Oh, and stop sucking your own dick about it every freaking ten seconds on your goddamn radio stations, like you’re Mr. Philanthropy. Do you think radio listeners are swooning over your generosity? Fuck you.
I fucking HATE Clear Channel. I was going to start a pit thread about this on Tuesday, but my internet connection went down.
Here in the Denver area, we get looooong ads about how Clear Channel and KFCK [insert whatever call letters you want here] have a fund going to assist the victims, and Clear Channel/KFCK are doing bleah bleah bleah, and send your money to Clear Channel/KFCK at such and such address. In one ad, I counted FIVE references to Clear Channel/KFCK. Given that I’ve never heard of Clear Channel before, I interpret this as Clear Channel deciding to do some advertising, and what better way than to hop on the “We’re so compassionate” Bandwagon!
Well FUCK YOU, Clear Channel. You lost ALL of my respect when you turned your charity in to a fucking media circus. People are DEAD, and you decide to advertise. There’s plenty o’ deserving charities out there already - if you wanted to raise money, why not give THEM free ads? Why not let all your child stations play free advertisements for the Red Cross, or the Fireman’s relief fund? Oh, you couldn’t do that, because YOU COULDN’T SLAP YOUR NAME ALL OVER IT.
And you’re not the only one. How many ads have I seen with company names displayed prominently, talking about how difficult it’s been, how we’re all banding together, and by the way, here’s OUR FUCKING NAME AGAIN! What next? The Clear Channel ® World Trade Center Disaster? You could trademark the name! You’d OWN it! Boy, THEN you’d be compassionate!
So their $150k works out to be about $130 per radio station they own.
I have mixed feelings on this – they obviously aren’t obligated to do anything, but it seems that if they are going to pat themselves on the back like this they might have done a little more.